


Hearts in Hands

by Willow_bird



Series: on the tip of my tongue (say something) [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Aaron Minyard loves Katelyn, Andreil from outside perspective, F/M, Fluff, Katelyn is a snoop, Katelyn loves Aaron Minyard, M/M, POV Katelyn (All For The Game), Selective Mute Neil Josten, Soft Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Wholesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24894718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow_bird/pseuds/Willow_bird
Summary: Katelyn loves her boyfriend Aaron and she knows that Aaron loves her. She cannot even begin to fathom how he is related to his twin, Andrew, because of how different they are - but one day she sees Andrew and Neil in the library and her world gets a little bit rocked.*This scene takes place at the end of the first chapter of'say something', when Andrew and Neil are in the library. You do not have to read 'say something' to enjoy this bit of fluffy drabble.*
Relationships: Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: on the tip of my tongue (say something) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782130
Comments: 34
Kudos: 478





	Hearts in Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, yeah -- remember that scene? Katelyn was there FOR THE WHOLE THING. Andreil is way less sneaky than they think they are.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!!

There were a lot of special things about Aaron Michael Minyard, but one of the things that Katelyn cherished the most was the way he held her hand.

Whether they clasped their hands while walking or intertwined their fingers while snuggling up watching a movie in her dorm, Aaron always held her hand like he never wanted to let go. It wasn't that he gripped it really tightly or that there was any particular tension at all - he just held her hand so _completely_ it was like he was giving her a hug with whatever part of him he was allowed to do it with and that just happened to be his hand. Once you've been hugged by Aaron Michael Minyard, the significance of this analogy made a lot more sense - because a hug from this man in particular was just _different_. When Aaron hugged her, Katelyn felt more present and more solid and more _real_ than she ever thought it was possible to be. He well and truly _held_ her, each and every time, in a way that inspired her to hold him right back and he always, always leaned into the embrace just that much more when she did.

It was... well, it was its own sort of magic.

But she still loved it when Aaron held her hand best, maybe because it was smaller and more private - something that was clearly just for them (not that she'd ever seen Aaron hug anyone else, but hugs were bigger gestures - they were actions that people could see). That, and they held hands so often - yet the contact never seemed to lessen in it's weight. It always took an extra instant for Aaron to let her go, and she savored it every time.

Even now, when they'd only actually been holding hands for a couple of minutes as Aaron walked her from her class to the library where she was going to be spending the next hour working on a group project for one of her classes. His fingers dragged against hers as they reached the library, pulled away slower, lingering, hovering in the space between them for an extended moment before the contact finally broke.

Katelyn smiled, continuing their conversation. "I'm glad I'll be working with Anna. She's always so put together."

"I thought you said she was bossy?" Aaron raised an eyebrow at her and she rolled her eyes with a laugh. She felt herself go all soft at the look in his eyes as he caught up her hands again, not really holding them as much as he was lightly playing with her fingers, brushing his thumbs over them as he brought them up and grazed them so lightly with his lips the gesture was more a nuzzle than a kiss.

"She is. But it gets the job done. We don't end up wasting the whole first work day sitting around asking the same three questions over and over again: 'What do you wanna do?' 'Who should do what?' 'What's the plan?' Sure she can be a little... Mm... corporate - but it always works out in the end!"

"Corporate. I like that." He chuckled, the sound light, his smile so brightly amused that Katelyn could see both dimples peeking at her from the shallows just beyond the corners of his mouth. His right cheek dimpled deeper than his left one did, and sometimes he would get this grin that made them both wink out and it was the most adorable thing she'd ever seen. It happened more often now in the last six months or so than in all the time she'd known him, even after they started... well, not dating, not officially, but they'd both known it was always more than just casual between them.

"What! It's fitting!" she teased with a grin of her own. "It doesn't really get her many fans, but she sure knows how to delegate fairly and assign roles. So what if she has a certain..."

"Soullessness?" Aaron offered genially.

"I was going to say _'reserved and businesslike disposition'_ , thank you." Katelyn attempted to affect mild offense as she plucked at his shirt in reprimand, but she was smiling too much to be very successful.

"Uh huh. Sure thing babe." Aaron smiled at her then leaned up the few inches separating them and kissed her on the lips. He squeezed her hands and kissed them next. He still hadn't fully let go by the time he stepped back and Katelyn was sure her heart was either raw sunshine at this point or a puddle of goo - it just couldn't decide.

"I should let you go," he was saying, almost sheepishly.

"I'll see you tonight though, okay? My place?" Now that she had her hands back they felt unnaturally empty, like she'd left home without her keys.

He gave her another bright smile and she couldn't help but lean forward and give him a short, sweet kiss. His eyes were still half closed, his smile soft, when she pulled away. She lifted a hand and lightly fluffed his hair as she moved to climb the steps. "I love you!"

"Love you too, baby. See you tonight!"

Katelyn loved her boyfriend so fucking much.

*****

One would think that there couldn't possible be more than one of a person so uniquely special as Aaron Michael Minyard, and you would be _absolutely fucking correct_ \- thank you very much.

Aaron had a twin. An identical twin. An identical, slightly insane, horribly traumatized (but that's no excuse to exercise an unhealthy, abusive level of manipulative control over another person and say it was "for their own good" or "something they agreed to" or "none of your business you stupid cheerleader") twin brother. They were both blond. They were both short. They both had impeccable bone structure and were college athletes. That is where the similarities ended. Katelyn had absolutely no idea whatsoever how anyone could ever confuse the two. They acted, spoke, walked, _breathed_ completely different! Yes, yes - she knew that Aaron was considerably different when he was with _her_ than when he was around his teammates or classmates or even when her friends were around - but to her the distinction was still glaringly obvious.

Katelyn felt for Andrew, she did. No one should ever have to go through what he had - and trauma effected people in different ways, but there still comes a point where you can't blame the trauma anymore. There comes a point where it is still that person's _choice_ to act the way that they do, and well, Katelyn was not very approving of a lot of Andrew Minyard's choices.

Still, she tried not to dwell. She would always be on Team Aaron, but Aaron and Andrew were trying to reconcile and she knew how badly Aaron wanted it to work out. At least she rarely had to interact with Andrew. Even with her going by the dorms more often and the Vixens mingling regularly with the Foxes since the end of last year, Andrew mostly kept to himself and rarely spoke to anyone outside of his very exclusive circle. She'd born the brunt of more than a few if-looks-could-kill sort of murder attempts, but he hadn't touched her or even come close to her since last spring when he'd... Well, since that unpleasantness.

So it was worth a double-take when Katelyn arrived in the library and saw a black-clad, apathetic copy of her boyfriend sitting at one of the tables in the library with Neil Josten, fiddling with his phone with one hand. It looked a little odd, because his free hand was hanging awkwardly by his side, hidden by the table...

Wait.

No, no Katelyn knew what she was looking at. Because Neil had one hand dangling too. The hand beside Andrew.

Katelyn's eyes widened and she quickly ducked behind one of the tall rows of bookshelves. Then, because she had absolute zero control and nosiness was a flaw she knew she had to work on (...tomorrow...) she crept quietly through and around the shelves until she was close enough to see them clearly and hear them if they were talking. Knowing Andrew would probably scalp her if he caught her, she crouched down to make sure she was far below eye level. This, helpfully, also let her see that Andrew Minyard was _absolutely_ holding hands with Neil Josten.

Something caught in her chest, squeezing her heart in a conflicting sort of way as she stared at their hands. As she saw how they both held onto each other like letting go just wasn't something they would ever consider doing. Like holding on was the beginning and the end without it being any sort of desperation. Like they were hugging each other with the most private touch they could manage right now, in a public place. It was something incredibly intimate for all that it was so innocent, and if Katelyn were anyone else she probably would have averted her gaze.

But she wasn't, so she stared, openly and in befuddled awe from her hiding place where she was spying on her boyfriend's ~~evil~~ morally questionable twin and his... boyfriend?

Aaron had said some things about Neil and Andrew and their relationship but the way he talked about it made it out to be less of a relationship in the traditional sense. It had never been any of her business and she typically didn't judge anyway, so she didn't think anything of it. She wasn't any closer with Neil than she was with Andrew, despite him helping (could you really call it that though?) her out last year. This, though? _This?_ Two people who had a purely physical and potentially sexually combative (hate sex, Aaron called it hate sex) sort of arrangement didn't hold hands. They certainly didn't hold hands like _that_ and they _absolutely_ didn't hold hands like that if one of them was Andrew Minyard.

"Don't look at me like that," Andrew suddenly growled out, his voice hoarse with emotion in a way she hadn't thought he was capable of.

Katelyn jumped so hard she almost threw herself backward into the bookcase behind her, sure she'd just been caught. When she peeked around the edge though, neither of the two boys were looking her way. They were staring at each other and though Katelyn couldn't read either of them as well as she could read her friends or Aaron, she was still seeing _something_ there that... well, that just wasn't there before.

“You aren’t okay. You aren’t okay and no one else could see it.” The words were angry, spitting, accusatory, but even Katelyn could tell that whoever he was upset with - it wasn’t actually Neil. 

Katelyn could feel her heart throb heavily in her chest and she curled one hand over it like she could physically soothe it’s ache. She _intimately_ understood the helpless frustration in Andrew’s voice. Gods, how many times had she gone off on her own friends back when she and Aaron were hiding their relationship, or before that when they were trying in vain to pretend even to themselves and each other that they didn’t have one at all? None of them understood him. They thought he was being a bastard, that he was cold and angry and distant and that she must be going through some weird bad-boy phase. They didn’t understand how sweet he was, and how _vulnerable_ he was. Whenever he shrugged and ignored them and their forced overtures of friendship, he was protecting himself - was trying to protect _them!_

And that wasn’t even mentioning that whole awful period last fall, last winter - when his whole world had crumbled and no one had seen how much he was hurting. _No one_. They ignored his pain because they didn’t know how to deal with it, how to help him through it, or maybe because it was just fucking _easier_ than acknowledging he was a real fucking person.

Katelyn had to take a slow, deep breath to calm herself down before thinking about all of that got her worked up again. 

She focused back on Andrew and Neil. It seemed like half of their conversation was completely nonverbal. More than half, actually, because Neil didn’t seem like he was speaking at all and they were both communicating just as much with looks as Andrew was with his words.

“Fuck you, Neil, you know what I mean,” Andrew grumbled with about as much venom as a corn snake*. When Neil only shrugged, Andrew’s frustration seemed to peak. “So you’re not okay. They don’t fucking give a shit to notice, and I sure as fuck can’t fix you.”

Katelyn flinched in time with Neil’s recoil, feeling the harsh sting from Andrew’s tone even though it wasn’t directed at her. She didn’t think it was actually directed at Neil, either, but that time the other boy seemed to take it far more personally. He was wounded, and Katelyn shifted her gaze to Andrew in time to see the instant regret on his face, bone deep and half-shocked as he kicked himself for lashing out and hurting his boyfriend. A second later he slathered on a hasty cover-up of anger that wasn’t nearly as convincing as he probably thought it was and stood up, turning to storm off in typical _’I’m a guy who just fucked up and I have no idea what to do so I’m going to run away instead of apologize’_ fashion. Katelyn would have rolled her eyes if her heart wasn’t hurting for the sudden panicked agony in Neil’s expression.

Never in all the time she had known Neil, all the times she’d seen him or interacted with him or watched him out on the court, had she ever, _ever_ seen such raw emotion on him. His pain was a thousand times more potent than any joy or triumph she’d witness from his wins on the court, and that was the only other time she could really say she _had_ seen such genuine expression on him.

Andrew stopped short, and it took a second before Katelyn realized it was because Neil had reached out and grabbed the hem of his shirt.

“Stay,” Neil croaked softly, and Katelyn pressed a hand over her mouth to keep herself from making any sound. His voice was… it was rough yes, but it was _drenched_ in anxious misery and it tumbled out like a sob. She was listening to Neil Josten beg, she realized, and it hurt her soul.

Katelyn’s eyes flicked to Andrew and she got to watch as all the anger and tension drained out of him. She got to watch him transform into… into someone that resembled her Aaron a lot more than she ever could have fathomed Andrew J Minyard could have possibly been capable of. His expression softened and his body loosened as he eased himself back into the seat. Then he lifted Neil’s hand and brought it up to his face - but the gesture was so much more complex and layered than that. Katelyn couldn’t help but feel that with each small movement she was missing several dozen intricate exchanges until they sat facing each other, with Neil’s hand cupping Andrew’s cheek and Andrew’s hand pressed protectively over the striker’s scarred fingers to keep it there. The whole time, Andrew never once took his eyes off Neil’s, as if by looking away he’d unravel something terribly fragile and Neil might stop being there at all.

Then two words hushed into the air between the two boys that Katelyn had been pretty sure Andrew didn’t even _know_ : “I’m sorry.”

Neil looked similarly shocked, but Andrew wasn’t done.

“I am not going anywhere. No matter what your issues are, or how many you have. If there are days where talking is hard, then don’t talk. I really shouldn’t be throwing fucking stones, considering how much of a chatterbox I’m absolutely fucking not. If it bothers you, then we’ll find a way around it. If not, then I won’t bring it up again. You don’t owe shit to anyone, Neil. Least of all to me.”

There was no trace of anger or irritation in Andrew’s voice. It wasn’t overly emotional either - not like earlier. If anything, his voice almost had his usual bored or apathetic affectation, except that it was softer - not in volume but in tone. _Sincere,_ Katelyn thought. Andrew sounded sincere.

As Katelyn watched, there was another one of those loaded silences - where Andrew and Neil seemed to say a hundred thousand things across the empty air between them. And then Neil relaxed and leaned forward and they rested their foreheads together in such a tender moment of intimacy that Katelyn _did_ look away this time. As quietly and carefully as she could, she pulled back from the edge of the aisle and her little hiding place, then she turned and walked away. She took the long way around the whole floor of the library to get to the stairs where she could head up to the third floor study rooms so she could meet her group.

Throughout the meeting she was more than happy to let Anna take over, her mind way too distracted. Should she tell Aaron what she’d seen? A part of her wanted to - like, a _huge_ part of her wanted to. Andrew was his brother! They struggled so much to understand each other, and she felt like Aaron deserved to know that there was this… this other side to him. Especially since they were trying to work things out between them. That, and she felt like she now had a responsibility to correct Aaron’s impression of Neil and Andrew’s relationship. Whatever they were to each other (boyfriends in love, obviously - like, _hello_ ) it was so not hate sex. 

And yet…

And yet it also felt like telling anyone would be a _huge_ violation of Andrew and Neil’s privacy. Sure, they’d had their little scene in the library where anyone could see, but Katelyn had just taken advantage of the open space and followed her own inclination to snoop. That was the only real reason why she’d witnessed it as clearly as she had. It wasn’t like they’d been loud or anything. If she’d learned anything from the last couple years, it was that Andrew was a private person and so was Neil.

So later on, when she met up with Aaron for dinner, she didn’t mention having seen Andrew and Neil in the library. She kept their secret, and the next time Aaron sighed and complained and shuddered in reference to his brother’s relationship with Neil she only smiled and shook her head. 

“Maybe there’s more that you don’t see,” she suggested lightly, taking Aaron’s hand and squeezing it. “Maybe there’s sides to both of them no one gets to see.”

“Right,” Aaron scoffed with evident skepticism, but she could see the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as she pulled him closer on the couch. “What makes you say that?”

Katelyn just shrugged, and sighed at the happiness bubbling in her chest as Aaron began lightly playing with her fingers, laying down so his head was in her lap. “I dunno, a feeling I guess,” she said with a hum. “And besides, he’s your brother. I know it’s complicated between you two and I’m definitely far from being Andrew’s number one fan, but…” She shrugged. “Can you just trust me on this one, babe?”

Aaron looked up at her and she felt warm and cozy, cherished and so, so safe under the gaze of his sun-hazel eyes, the gold in them shining like they lit up just for her. 

“Mm, whatever you say, babe.” 

Katelyn knew that wasn’t a promise, and she knew that Aaron would continue to think what he thought about his brother for now - but at least for the moment she accepted it with a smile, leaning down to kiss him sweetly on the lips. 

“I love you, Aaron,” she said quietly with her lips still touching his. “I love you, I love you, I love you - three times three times three.” She could feel him smiling at the familiar mantra and that warmth pulsed in her chest again. Then she leaned in and pressed their smiles together for another kiss.

* * *

*Corn snakes are not venomous at all. In fact, although they look similar to the much more dangerous _copperhead_ , corn snakes are harmless to humans, generally gentle, adorable, and make great pets and companions. Do not use any of these adjectives to describe one (1) Andrew Minyard where he can actually hear you. If you must, just leave it at ‘snake’ and let him infer what he likes. It will at least give you time to get out of striking range.


End file.
